More and more islands

There are 162 islands is this part of the world. I know this because we carry on board a book written by Hamish Haswell-Smith who describes them all in wonderful detail. He defines an island as something over 100 acres which is not connected to the mainland by bridge or causeway, even at low water. This is a definition that excludes some pretty large and significant land masses, like Skye for instance, but clearly you have to make some choices if you set out on a task such as his.

Rather than try to visit everything we too are being selective, our choice being governed by the wind and the weather as much as anything else.

But unlike Hamish we recognise that there are some bits of mainland that are equally worth seeing so our compass is even larger than his. We make a return visit to Loch Drumbuie on the Morvern peninsula, its narrow entrance widening into a natural safe haven for yachts but with no facilities to offer except a bottom of silt into which an anchor can plunge. A high pressure system is centred over us bringing morning fogs which can linger and make navigation difficult. Fortunately our GPS system operates regardless of the visibility so we don't get lost in the mist.

Stripes of mist hover about us as we motor out of the Sound of Mull towards the island of Coll, a windswept hummock of rock and heather with a human population of only a hundred or so, more when the holiday cottages are full. In the centre of the eastern shore is a bay where the main settlement lies and the ferry pauses briefly each day, as do a few yachts like ours since the island boasts a hotel, shop and café in addition to its many sheep.

The islanders wave hello as you pass by whilst the sheep stand and gaze or scratch themselves thoughtfully (or maybe this was an obscene gesture).

A northerly wind arrived overnight, a fair wind for just about anywhere except Coll where it brought a sudden temperature drop which prompts most of the boaties to up anchor and leave. I may have mentioned before that downwind sailing is our thing, so naturally we were headed south, across the Passage of Tiree to find shelter behind the twin peaks on the Isle of Ulva, an island off the west coast of Mull whose name means wolf island in old Norse. The southern shore is dotted about with rocky skerries through which we weave our way until we can drop anchor in Cragaig Bay, as safe an anchorage as one can find.

A 'cleared' village, now only walls and doorways remaining, stands onshore as a sad reminder of what took place all over the highlands and wild goats gaze down on us from the mountain slopes above. Although sheltered from the northerly wind, strong gusts sweep down on us buffeting Cirrus this way and that but we suffer this as the view is stunning, mountains (on Mull) to the left and islands to the right, as far as the eye can see, some sharp in the clear air and others faded with greater distance. Even three photos stitched side by side cannot do justice to what we are seeing from our companionway door. Every piece of land we see is another island and they stretch from ear to ear. The clarity of the air makes everything as sharp as a pin but although the sun shines we huddle inside out of the cold wind. All this and not a human soul to be seen.

What makes this place feel even more remote is that we have no mobile phone reception, no access to the internet and no broadcast radio reception either. We are alone with the seals, the goats, the gulls and the terns plus the cuckoo singing away nearby.

After two nights at anchor we move on south passing through the Sound of Iona, early enough in the day to miss most of the trip boats taking tourists to see the monastery and the cathedral there, then turn east to pass along the south coast of Mull. Sailing at more than seven knots we are joined by a solitary dolphin who 'plays' around us for thirty minutes or so. Easily two and a half metres long he keeps just in front of our bow, close to the surface, sometimes showing us his white belly, just for fun, then flipping over and surfacing, blowing a sardine-scented breath before drawing another lung-full and diving. He comes alongside, tilting his head to look up at our deck where we stand spellbound then races ahead again between our twin hulls. He seems to like the speed we are going or the shape and colour of our boat, has no difficulty keeping pace, and is as curious about us as we are about him. Finally he has enough and we wave farewell.

Later the northerly wind deserts us, making it feel much warmer but Cirrus slows down so miss our tide in the Sound of Luing. We press on anyway and arrive at this constricted passage between the isles of Luing and Lunga just when the sea is rushing northwards at over five knots. Our short passage south, engine at full speed, starts very slowly as current tries to hold us back, boiling and churning past us, but eventually we gain on it and escape round the south end of Luing to safer waters and into Craobh Marina. Our return to mainland Britain is complete.

Home again

Travelling the length of Britain almost from end to end is the best way to appreciate the size of the country, which is considerably larger than it might appear on the page of an atlas. Doing it overnight by bus, nine hours in a cramped seat from London to Glasgow, is similar to flying long-haul across the Atlantic, the main difference being the mid-point stop at Charnock Richard Services for the driver to take a meal; you can't just 'pull over' in an aeroplane. The seats are firm and upright so sleep is somewhere between difficult and impossible and with time hanging heavy the mind wanders off on its own flight of fancy.

Our journey back to Crinan was a complex one, even by our standards. A walk to Yeovil station (via a small country park thickly scented with wild garlic), train into London, then three successive buses, one of which travelled through the night and the last of which deposited us at the end of a narrow lane leading down to Crinan Harbour. Again the scent was of wild garlic but here the flowers, like golf balls when fully open. are still closed, it being further north. We recovered our dinghy from the shoreline for the short row back to the boat, ending our marathon journey. Our evening meal had been a sandwich in London, breakfast was a fry-up in Glasgow. By the time we were back home we were too tired to eat, sleep being the priority.

So why do we put ourselves through such a gruelling method of travel? Purely the cost, I'm afraid. At £25 return each for the London to Glasgow leg we just cannot turn it down.

After a deep overnight sleep we are raring to go again so despite the frequent rain showers we lug our folding bikes ashore and set off to explore Tayvallich and Achnamara, two very different villages on the Knapdale peninsula just to the south of us. The first is a holiday resort centred around a sheltered natural harbour which in the height of summer is thick with boats and holiday makers. The caravan/camping site here ensures its popularity and enables the place to have a pub and a cafe, both of which open all year.

Achnamara lies at the northern end of Loch Sween, one of the long fingers of water stretching out to the south-west towards Ireland. Rarely visited for its own sake it will be passed through by those visiting the ruins of Castle Sween further down the loch. It is a small settlement of houses, has no retail establishments of any sort but has a bus service which runs four or five times a day into Lochgilphead which keeps the place alive and in touch with the rest of the world.

We return completely exhausted, having cycled rather further than we envisaged but pleased with ourselves for having done it. We have ridden through some amazingly wild and beautiful countryside, just the sort of thing we like, so en route back to Crinan we treat ourselves (rather guiltily) to the British Waterways showers at Bellanoch, free to those who have a key to gain access.

And once again the sun gives us a treat at sunset.

Home from home

It feels like we have done a lot of crazy things in the thirteen months since our working lives ended and we cast off into retiree-land, so I suppose our latest venture is really just par for the course. Maybe I need to recap, just as a reminder of how we got to this point.

It all started whilst we were spending last winter in Italy, our first post retirement winter and living for the first time for many years close to my brother as well as being surrounded by beautiful mountains. As the months passed we had slowly begun to realise that something about our retirement plan wasn't quite gelling for us. For all the thoughtfully prepared choices Kate and I had discussed between ourselves and talked about in the years leading up to April 09, something was missing. We discovered we now wanted something we hadn't thought we would want and this came as something of a shock. We had discovered that to live aboard a boat all summer and to live in rented accommodation, somewhere different, each winter has left us feeling strangely uncomfortable, even unsettled. What was missing was 'a home', and this was odd because we kind of thought we could do without it. The boat is our home for a large part of the year and we are comfortable with this but we now feel that along with this we need something on solid ground, a base, so that even when we are on board we can think of it as 'home' and mentally place ourselves there. (If my explanation here sounds woolly then maybe this is something that confounds logic and I therefore give up trying to explain further.)

So this is how we find ourselves in Yeovil, Somerset taking responsibility for a property we acquired some years ago as a buy-to-let investment, planning to make it our home. Now if you had asked me twelve months ago whether I expected to be sitting here at this stage in my life I would have said "No chance" but here I am nonetheless. Although to be honest there isn't much sitting going on - we have very little furniture to call our own - but at least here we are surrounded by four walls.

There is a small trade-off to acquiring the home, however, which is that the house needs much work done to make it what we would call habitable. We have a sound structure but internally things are not as we would want. So we have a project, a winter project, to look forward to which we think will keep us busy until the sun returns to the northern hemisphere.

After a brief visit to the property it will be 'business as usual' as we continue our sailing circumnavigation of Britain. Later in the year, however, this blog could well become something rather different as instead of bounding up and down mountains it is more likely to be a stepladder and instead of recounting tales of rushing rivers or twisted kneecaps it will be all about painted ceilings and plumbing elbows.

Crinan in Argyll is a long way from Yeovil and our journey there by train and bus promises to be no less tiring than when we travelled south. The difference now is that we'll soon be arriving in one of the prettiest places in the land.

Sailing the Isles

After resting in Oban waiting for some warmth to come to us and then recognising that, as everyone here is saying, it is an unseasonably cold Spring, we have spent the last three days sailing, passing through some of the many channels and passages between Scottish islands large and small.

 

The trick for us and our boat, since we are not roughneck, go-out-in-any-weather sailors is to pick a day when the wind is going our way, or as close to it as we can. That way it feels warmer, perhaps even hot if the sun dares to show itself, and as it happens Cirrus, being a catamaran, also likes to sail downwind, for that is what she does best. So it was a contented boat and crew that emerged from the southern end of Kerrera Sound, sails filling to a nice north-westerly breeze.

On our left the Isle of Seil, regarded by some as not an island at all by reason of being attached to the mainland by the 'Bridge over the Atlantic', and to the right the tiny isle of Insh, reputedly owned by an eccentric Londoner who occasionally occupies the cave on its eastern flank. Seil used to be quarried extensively for its slate which was dug out of a deep hole very close to the sea at the southern end of the island until 1881, that is, when the sea breached the quarry walls and flooded the place thus putting paid to the island's only real source of income.

Just south of Seil we enter the narrow, tide-swept channel know as Cuan Sound which winds its way between Seil and its smaller neighbours, Luing and Torsa. Navigation here is simply about keeping Cirrus in the centre of the rocky passage as she is rushed through amid seething whirlpools of water and then about making a sudden ninety-degree left turn to avoid more rocks hidden from view beneath the surface. We pop out into Seil Sound and make a sailing detour eastwards to the end of Loch Melfort where there is a hotel accessible both by road and sea but rather than stopping, we reverse our track so we can creep carefully into Ardinamir Bay and anchor for the night. The tiny entrance to this tidal pool is guarded on both sides by weed-covered rocks but some thoughtful soul has erected posts (perches) on them so visiting sailors know where they lie.

We spend a peaceful night here listening to the wind gradually ease and by morning the only noise is from the wildlife, a flock of curlews, some Canada geese, oyster catchers, a red breasted merganser and his mate. When in the morning a slight breeze begins we emerge again into Shuna Sound, raise sail and move on south past smaller uninhabited islands with challenging Gaelic names until we reach the disturbed waters of Jura Sound. This is a place where tidal waters from the Atlantic and the Irish Sea try to force their way into the Western Isles past tongues of land emerging from the Scottish mainland. The Sound is like a river, up to four miles wide, that flows either north or south but is never completely still. Even on a relatively calm day the water swirls about, swelling eddies rising everywhere, wavelets rippling the surface next to fast-flowing liquid plates although the water is in effect simply flowing downhill and it is the force of gravity that changes direction; imagine a water-laden tea tray being rocked back and forth. Yet strangely such mighty forces have no apparent effect on us humans.

Sailing through an area like this needs a steady hand on the tiller as the boat is pulled this way and that but it is an exhilarating experience none the less.

We cross the river of water just south of Eilean na Cille (Chapel Island) then reverse our track turning north east up Loch Craignish, another long finger of water whose head will give us shelter for the night in Ardfern Marina. By evening the geese are shouting again while a single lone heron sits patiently waiting for his dinner to pass by and a family of eider ducks seems engaged on moving house.

Our third day is somewhat more tame from a sailing perspective but we pass behind two more islands, Righ (Royal) and Macaskin through a channel cluttered with the floating nets of salmon farms. We cross a breezy Loch Crinan, in reality more of a wide bay, to moor in total calm behind Eilean da Mhèinn whose trees protect Crinan harbour from the worst of the westerly gales. Leaning out over the side we sit and watch a hermit crab backpacking across the sand a metre below us.

Just behind Crinan the land rises steeply to afford views across all the islands we have recently passed by. We make the climb on a clear evening, so clear that the only things preventing us seeing the Outer Hebrides are the mountains of Mull and Ben Nevis itself blocks our view further north. The low shadows pick out every lump and wrinkle in the Spring landscape for the season is just arriving here. Trees have swollen buds waiting ready to pop open, bracken shoots are uncurling, newly emerged butterflies sample their first pollen and the deadnettle is in flower.

Barra for the day

For readers in doubt, Barra is the southernmost inhabited island in the Outer Hebrides, that windswept place that is always hidden behind the TV weather forecaster's head while he or she waves his/her hands across the rest of the country. There are only about 1600 inhabitants to get upset over this and most of those know that their weather is sufficiently unique so no general forecast is going to be of much use to them. Certainly in the course of the 60 mile passage between Oban and Barra it did seem to us that our ferry had moved us into another weather system, notably different and as luck would have it, better than what we had left behind.

We arrived to find a place where the air is so free from pollution that the light has a shiny, dream-like quality imparting subtle changes to every shade and colour. Kate's delight knew no bounds as our arrival immediately triggered memories of childhood holidays spent here with her family. True, the place has changed from what she knew. Today this is a thriving community with lots going on all year round. Tourism is a big thing but even so early in the season the place has a vibrant feel to it. You don't come to live on a place like Barra expecting to find someone to employ you in a regular nine to five job though. If you do you'll be disappointed. But this is a place where individuality counts and your expertise can be used to the full.

Take our Bed&Breakfast, for instance, where we seized upon the opportunity to jump on a couple of bikes they had purchased for visitors' use. Keeping hire bikes in good repair locally falls to a retired ex-policeman who has the special skills needed for this, not a living in itself but part of the network of local skills that a remote community draws on when it needs them.

Unfortunately for us our bikes still awaited his attention this year so it was with gears crashing and brakes rubbing that we set off clockwise around the island along the A888, Barra's main road.

Thankfully the cool wind was light so with the sun popping in and out all day we only had to find a sheltered spot to be able to rest our weary legs when we needed to, which was quite often. The road is, naturally, narrow and even on Barra not all car drivers are 'cycle-aware', but what they are is friendly. At first you begin to wonder why someone has smiled and raised a hand to wave at you. Then someone else does it and soon you begin to realise that it is simply what they do - being nice to other people is what comes naturally here and stopping for a chat is expected behaviour too.

Our first lunch-stop was beside a small lochan whose surface the wind rippled gently for us.

The next was at Eoligarry, Barra's airport, and yet another fine sandy beach but this time naturally crusted with broken shells giving firm footing for the planes which land there. The third was beside a natural inlet on Barra's east side where a pair of sandpipers joined us to poke about in the weed looking for their lunch and then finally after we had crawled up the steep hill behind Castlebay we stopped again so the legs could recover before we swooped down to the township beneath us. Across the Minch the Cuillin mountains on Skye winked at us in the sun, puffy cumulus clouds hovering over them and in the bay the castle, restored at some expense by one of our American cousins, part of the extended MacNeil family, stood out proudly on its own island.

We came to Barra for different reasons, Kate to recall her childhood past and me to savour a first encounter with the Outer Hebrides but we both found a place full of surprises.

Least expected of all was the 'Cafe Kisimul' on Castlebay's Main Street a place offering spicy Indian food to rival anything a large city can offer and a terrific menu choice for us vegetarians. In only 36 hours on the island we found ourselves eating their superb food twice, neither time being disappointed. Then, whilst idling away a few moments on the harbour wall waiting for our ferry home we had a close encounter with one of Barra's wilder inhabitants. Just yards away below us a big dog otter was hunting and feeding on crabs and fish in the bay. Normally so shy these creatures are rarely seen close up. To come this close to the port where ferries dock, people embark in dinghies, and with the bus stop guaranteeing an almost constant human presence, this chap must have felt confident he was not going to be disturbed as he rummaged about. Just like the other 1599 inhabitants of the island, this was his home.

We asked Pauline, in the Kisimul, whether she might conjure up some dolphins for us on the journey back to the mainland and as it turned out she was a good as her promise for there they were, diving in and out of the ship's bow wave in a display of sheer joy. Thanks again, Pauline, for the food and for the special treats.